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See, I don't know how much weight you can lend to the theory of playoff inexperience.
The Celtics absolutely DESTROYED teams in the regular season. Their average point differential for the whole season was over +10 per game. Second best was around +8 or so. They won almost 30 more games than the Hawks in the regular season.
I understand that the playoffs is a different beast, but the talent discrepancy between these two teams was insanely large.
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Largely due to KG's influence, the Celtics were also the most focused team in the regular season, and it's very likely this inflated their numbers. Problem for them is that everybody is focused in the playoffs, more or less(except for the Pistons
).
It's not true just because I say it is. Only once in the last seven years has the team with the best regular-season record won the title -- and this is with most of them having a lot more games played together than this season's Celtics. More often than not they watch the NBA Finals on TV. This is not an accident.
Obviously they are a lot better than the Hawks. But traditionally speaking great regular season does not automatically equal great playoff performance. Great talent getting thrown together often has problems. Boston might not necessarily have these problems, but it doesn't make much sense to assume they won't either.